"We are certain that affected accounts remain secure, player info (incl. email addresses) isn’t being divulged & any logout issue is resolved,” Fornite tweeted.
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There is growing concern among Fortnite players that their login information is being leaked via the in-game leaderboard, but Epic Games has reassured fans that their API is secure. When fans create an online account to play games, their first concern is the security of their personal information. Although developers make every effort to avoid hacker scares, they do occur from time to time. This, according to one Fortnite fan, has happened with Epic Games.
Jonathan ‘Yung Calculator’ Weber claimed that he was inexplicably logged out of his account and that the battle royale’s in-game leaderboards were leaking personal information such as email addresses. This prompted a response from a Fortnite data-miner, who denied the claims, and Epic backed up their statement.
According to Yung Calculator, Epic Games has not secured player logins, so anyone with access to these emails can try to hack accounts, reset passwords, or kick players out of a match. Additionally, it will log you out of the game.
“Guys, Epic Games’ infrastructure is so dogmeat that if you don’t have this turned off, people can find your email,” he said. “That’s kind of bad on its own, but then if they have your email, they can send password resets to your account. That’s fine normally — on Twitter, it means nothing normally — but on Epic Games, it logs you out in-game,” Yung Calculator added.
He went on to say that he isn’t the only one who has had this problem, mentioning Clix, Nick Eh 30, and Nate Hill. “Epic Games has no idea what they’re doing. Their infrastructure is garbage. They need to change it — it’s disgraceful.”
Not everyone believes Yung’s claims are true. According to Fortnite data-miner ‘FNBRUnreleased,’ these types of leaks are impossible due to the nature of Epic’s API, so your email address cannot be made available to hackers. “It is not possible to view the email of another person’s Epic [account]. Epic’s API does not work like that. I’ve been seeing this rumor from [Yung Calculator] spreading false information,” they stated.
FNBRUnreleased’s defence of Epic Games has been backed up by the company itself, which responded to Yung’s claims on Twitter.
“We investigated reports that leaderboards were divulging non-public information or causing unauthorized logouts. This is not the case. We are certain that affected accounts remain secure, player info (incl. email addresses) isn’t being divulged & any logout issue is resolved,” Fornite tweeted.
Yung Calc’s tweet is no longer available online, indicating that it was either removed by the player or removed by Twitter. In any case, his claims have raised concerns, and Epic Games stands by the security of their API. That being said, you should always take extra precautions to protect your online information. You can accomplish this by using strong, impossible-to-guess passwords and implementing two-factor authentication wherever possible.
